754 



Tied Cottages. 



[march, 



on Rural Housing showed that farm servants prefer to 

 rent their cottages direct from the owner and not from the 

 farmer, because it gives them a sense of greater independence 

 and security in their daily relations with their employer, and, 

 further, places them in a more independent position if they 

 desire to approach their landlord on the question of rent or 

 repairs. In many districts in the South of England the wages 

 of agricultural labourers still remain low, but it has been shown 

 that in many of these cases the wages are supplemented by 

 various payments in kind which would represent in money an 

 amount of wage higher than that actually paid. Naturally, 

 where the tied system prevails, the cottager is reluctant to 

 complain to his employer, because he imagines that he has 

 the cottage rent free and fears to lose these payments in 

 kind. The condition of the labourer's cottage when attached 

 to the farm may easily be overlooked, the farmer's requisi- 

 tions upon the landlord being confined to the improvement of 

 the farm, and applications for the necessary repairs to the 

 cottages deferred from year to year. Many tied cottages 

 are accordingly neglected and get into a bad state of repair. 

 On broad principles it is desirable that every labourer should 

 receive his full wages in cash and not in kind, on the analogy of 

 the Truck Acts ; and that the cheap" cottage, and the contri- 

 butions in kind to the labourer, should be relinquished. The 

 farmer's objection to the abolition of the tied cottage is a 

 natural one, because a farm must have attached to it a certain 

 number of cottages to house those farm servants who are neces- 

 sary for the regular conduct of the farm. The tied cottage is 

 therefore an integral part of the equipment of a farm. Without 

 a sufficiency of cottages to guarantee the necessary number of 

 residential farm servants of the more indispensable kind, a farm, 

 otherwise desirable in every way, will not command a full rent. 

 The difference in the rent will be disproportionate to the 

 intrinsic capital value of the cottages. Consequently, the pro- 

 vision of cottages, although showing a loss on the intrinsic 

 capital outlay upon their erection, would indirectly enhance the 

 value of a farm. The rent-bearing capacity of the whole farm 

 is influenced by the presence in being and on the spot of a good 

 ■class of labourer ; and this superior type of man, possessed of 



